1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to scenting for activities such as hunting. More particularly, it relates to a system featuring a plurality of different scents for different purposes which are employable using interchangeable scent cartridges which engage a plurality of different holders for different mountings and purposes.
2. Prior Art
Modern, as well as primitive, hunting involves a tremendous amount of skill and strategy. In today's modern age, hunters utilize an almost endless amount of specialized weapons, tools, accessories, and other equipment to gain strategic advantage when hunting wild animals. However, even with advancements in technology, many of the basic hunting strategies still hold true.
One commonly known and widely employed strategy to increase success in hunting, involves masking ones own scent. Animals often have a keen sense of smell and can pick up on the human scent well before the animal is even seen. Since many game animals have learned to avoid humans, the hunter who fails to take scent into consideration risks the chance of success.
Consequently, hunters will often mask their own scent with the scent of the game they are hunting in order to make them ‘invisible’ to the game. Further, other scents can be employed to attract game, and can be very advantageous when used correctly. Still further, many hunters may desire to employ both human scent masking as well as game attracting scents to gain the utmost strategic advantage.
Conventionally, scents for attracting game or masking ones own scent are placed near a hunters hiding spot or other desired location such as on the user's body. They can be hung from trees, stuck in the ground, or tied to the trunks of trees. For masking their own human scent and further attracting game, hunters often scent their clothes or carry scent accessories on or near their bodies, often as clipped or attached to their belts, equipment, and so forth.
However, there is little in the market to allow hunters and other scent using individuals, to standardize their use, storage, and deployment of scents. Some conventional means to employ scents are wicks and sponges and rags which are dipped or sprayed with liquid scent bought in a container. The hunter will soak or coat these devices with a liquid scent, often an animal's urine or equivalent, and employ the device as needed. These methods are cheap and effective, but as can be discerned, using rags and sponges and liquid dips is often messy and difficult to handle. Further, if the user changes their clothes or position or type of game, a new scent setup must be engineered and the old one lost.
Prior art however, has shown attempts to allow a user to better employ masking or attractive scents. U.S. Pat. No. 5,611,165 to Blaha teaches a hunting scent holder with an absorbent material for carrying liquid animal scents enclosed within a container. The container is provided in either a closed stored position or an open as-used position for allowing ambient air to carry or waft the scent. The patent to Blaha can be configured to stake into the ground, or hang from a tree as desired. However, one can clearly see that the device to Blaha is bulky, and would not necessitate being comfortably engaged to a user's body when such scent strategies are desired. Furthermore, Blaha does not employ a convenient and quickly engageable means to change between different animal or attractive scents as needed for specific game hunting.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,241,161 to Corbett teaches a compact hunting scent container adapted to hold a predetermined amount of scent and is employable as a stake in the ground or can be hung from a tree. Further the device to Corbett may be engaged to a user's clothing by a string. However, Corbett as well as many other prior art hunting scents are limited in their use in that they do not easily necessitate interchangeability and storage as often desired by a user who may change position, tactics, and clothing. Further, when being hung from clothing as taught, Corbett and other devices can be cumbersome and even distracting, which is undesirable while hunting.
Many hunters find additional strategic advantage by engaging attracting and masking scents to their equipment as opposed to clothing, such as on their weapon. This may be desirable if the user employs a liquid animal urine and does not want potential direct contact of the liquid with their clothing or skin. In addition, the weapon is often kept close and will serve the same scenting purposes as direct contact with their clothing. Still further, engaging the scent device to their weapon will also alleviate the need to transport additional items on their bodies.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,810,614 to Phillips et al. teaches a device for mounting accessories to weapons such as a scent generating device. However, if a user feels that a scent is best employed at a clearing, tree, or other location as is strategically desired, the patent to Phillips does not teach a swift and easy means to disengage the scent from the weapon mounting device and engaged the scent on alternative mounting means. Furthermore, the mount of Phillips is limited to weapons mounting only and does not provide a means to mount the scent in aforementioned locations as well. Additionally, no easy manner to store one scent safely and engage another scent is provided by prior art.
As such, there is a continuing and unmet need for a system of components adapted for various mounting situations which can interchangeably engage the same scent cartridge. It should provide the user with the ability to interchangeably mount a standardized scent cartridge to a plurality of locations such as clothing and weapons, as well as various locations within the hunting environment such as the ground, a tree or other location, with each location employing its own specialized mounting device. Such a system should also employ a standardized scent cartridge adapted to fit a plurality of mounting devices to allow the user to move the scent cartridge about easily and to buy pre-scented cartridges which alleviate the need to soak or wet their cartridge and allow for easy purchase, storage and deployment of a plurality of different scents to different mounts for different purposes.